


Climbing So High

by DestielsDestiny



Category: Houdini & Doyle (TV)
Genre: Adelaide is Awesome, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bamf Doyle, Broken Bones, Doyle's kids are adorable, Family Feels, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Gun Violence, Harry's childhood was a little bit not good, Hide and Seek, Hurt Harry, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Permanent Injury, Possibly Pre-Slash, Tree Climbing, can be read either way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 06:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7674385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an impossible move. Even for Houdini. It saved her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Climbing So High

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. All mistakes are mine. This is the first of two parts, the second part will have a lot more feels, family bonding, and Harry recovering.

When Erich was five years old, he climbed the giant sycamore tree in the hotel’s stable yard. 

He was a good fifty feet up before his mother noticed he was missing, torn between watching a gaggle of children and trying to keep his father away from the bar. A house maid noticed him leaping nimbly from branch to branch outside a window on the fifth floor. She screamed loud enough to scatter a resident flock of pigeons, but fortunately not loud enough to fully dislodge the little escape artist from his lofty perch. 

It took three hours to get him down, at which time a smiling, green and brown streaked bundle was handed off to his father by an exasperated hotel manager. 

He didn’t have much to smile about for a while after that. It is far from Harry’s favourite memory, but sometimes when they arrive at a new hotel, his mother will gesture to a particularly majestic tree and they will both share a smile. Sometimes he even manages to chuckle along with her. 

Even twenty-odd years later though, nobody has ever quite figured out how he got up there in the first place. 

Nor is Harry ever likely to tell. 

00

It was an impossible move. Even for Houdini. 

They were in what Harry liked to call a good old fashioned Mexican standoff, Adelaide, Doyle, and himself. 

On one side of the tableau, Doyle was huddled protectively around his son, who had begged his father repeatedly for weeks to bring him on one his and Mr. Houdini’s adventures. Harry had managed to edge himself almost completely in front of Doyle, effectively hiding Kingsley completely from the line of sight of the rather weasely looking man currently holding a revolver rock steady on all of them. 

Which unfortunately meant Constable Stratton was facing off against the barrel of the gun virtually on her own, unarmed naturally, not even her police baton in sight. 

The alley which they had been stupidly lured into by the distressed cries of a woman who had actually whistled as they collected her pieces of eight from the gun toting Weasel, seemingly oblivious to the fact she had just lured four people, including a woman and a child, into near certain death. 

Weasel was their latest interviewee in a string of multiple violent murders, which had initially been put down to a water goblin of all things, due to the drowning nature of the victims’ deaths. 

They had all dismissed him utterly as a suspect for reasons that are alluding Harry at the moment, since Weasel’s recent upgrade to firearms possession seems to have made him rather more intimidating and homicidal looking than Harry remembers him being. 

Adelaide takes a very brave, very foolish step forward, her hands possessing not so much as a single tremor as she looks them out as if to ask for the gun, her voice only slightly higher than normal as she stares weasel down calmly. “You don’t want to do this.” 

Weasel appears to find that statement as incredible as Harry’s rapidly tightening throat does. 

“Howda ya figure that lady coppa?” Laughter was never more aptly described as derisive in Harry’s opinion, the gun barrel raising an inch as Adelaide takes yet another foolish step forward. 

She’s now less than three feet from the gun, which considering the alley they are waylaid in has to be narrow enough to swing a cat, is no mean feat. “They are more officers on their way. If you shoot us, you won’t make it out of here alive. Just put the weapon down and we can talk about this.” 

Harry can practically here the bitten off “man to man”, the rote Scotlandyardish phrase coming out hollow in the gathering dusk. He doesn’t need to feel Doyle’s tensing muscles or hear Kingsley’s frightened squeak to know that weasel finds that phrase as condescending as it probably was. 

A distinctive click fills the entire alley with its menace, as the gun aligns with Adelaide’s heart in time with the hammer kicking back. 

It’s a six round cartridge pistol. And this range, there’s no chance of it missing, even if Weasel is the worst shot in the history of Weasels. 

Harry doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t have time to think about it really. For a split second he’s five years old again, his older brother’s voice echoing in his ears, “I’m going to get you Ehrie!”, the vast tree trunk spread out far above him. 

Then his finely crafted leather shoes leave the slick cobbles of the alleyway, his body twisting high into the air, some part of him connected with each side of the alley. Kingsley will later insist that if looked like he sprouted wings and soured into the air like an avenging bat, but all Harry really remembers is falling. 

One moment Weasel is right there, gun between Adelaide and keeping on breathing, the next Weasel is splattered across the cobbles of the alley, the gun nowhere in sight. 

Harry hits the ground in almost the same instant. He doesn’t here the cracking sound that drains the colour from Addie’s face, doesn’t hear Doyle’s choked cry of “Harry!”

His last sight is of Kingsley’s small face screwed up in silent horror, gazing down as something twisted under Harry. 

He slips into unconsciousness before Doyle reaches his side, across that giant chasm of four and a half feet. His goes down with an “Oh shit” spiraling rapidly into his mind, because the first thing anyone learns when they learn how to fall is that you never want to land on one foot.

Or get in the way of a bullet on the way down. 

00

Adelaide tells him there was blood. Copious amounts of it apparently, pulsing out of Doyle’s interlaced fingers, splattering across her constable’s black blouse as she fought to keep his upper half still. 

Apparently it is possible to writhe even in unconsciousness. 

Doyle sent Kingsley for the police and an ambulance. Harry is rather mad with Arthur for that afterwards, considering how dangerous the London streets had just proved to be for three adults let alone one small eight-year-old boy. 

He is only slightly appeased by the knowledge that Weasel’s corpse was cooling rapidly some short distance away the entire time. 

Harry is far from masochistic, something which Doyle would argue about on any given day, but part of him always wishes he had managed to hang on to consciousness in those long minutes when Doyle attempted to prevent him from bleeding out from the compound fracture to his right femur he’d managed to acquire in leaping to Constable Stratton’s rescue. It had nothing to do with the pain though, and more a fervent desire to watch Doyle work. 

For someone who gave up medicine to write detective stories, Doctor Doyle is the best damn surgeon Harry has ever seen. 

And he should know by now. There’s a reason most of the bones he breaks are self-set, if he even bothers if attempting to set them at all. 

“He ripped up my entire hem for bandages.” Harry feels himself jerk forward slightly, a fissure of pain knifing through every muscle in his body. His head thunks strongly against the white wall of the hospital ward as Adelaide raises her eyes from her book to check if any permanent damage has been incurred. 

It had taken over a week for the pain medication to be weaned down for even semi-consciousness to surface in Harry’s mind, and in all that time he’s only been truly away of two things. The pain in his leg, and the distinct absence of one Arthur Doyle. 

“He wanted to take you back to his house. I told him not to be absurd.” Harry’s head leaves its attempt to make an indent in the wall with a swift jerk hard enough to make a cracking sound in his neck. He can feel the first flush of colour returning to his cheeks since he woke up to a stuffy, ancient looking doctor informing him that for a man who had had a bullet fracture his thigh bone and had lost nearly half his blood volume, he was doing very well and should consider himself remarkably lucky. 

Harry is pretty sure that luck had nothing to do with it, but then he’s absolutely sure that neither did the living fossil in front of him, so he turned over a new leaf and stayed stonily silent. 

A trend he’s continued resolutely with each passing, Doyleless day. 

Harry’s made it up nearly two inches on the flimsy pillow shielding his shoulders from the stark white wall before Adelaide moves to push him back down. The lump that may or may not still be his leg throbs in time with each attempt to wriggle even an inch. Harry has never wished for a scolding more in his life, as long as it would mean Doyle was here, present and accounted for. 

And when did Arthur Doyle become the most important person in his life anyway. Morphine makes one maudlin apparently Harry reflects waspishly, while acknowledging that the question was worth thinking. 

Adelaide’s settled on the edge of the bed, apparently deciding shattered limbs trump propriety, her hands gently smoothing down the covers over Harry’s exhausted arms. She keeps talking, oblivious to the rising anger in Harry’s heart. 

“Kingsley was terrified for both of you by the time Dr. Doyle finished stabilizing you. It took most of the night, even at the hospital.” She fixes him with determined forget-me-not blues, her gaze kind and steady. “Merring told him to take his boy home and see to his family. Said they had seen enough of hospitals lately.” 

Harry feels the colour drain back out of his cheeks, visions of Doyle sobbing at Touie’s lifeless bedside filling both their heads. It had been less than three weeks since her death, which was in large part the reason Doyle had caved to Kingsley’s pleading to accompany them all in the first place. Harry swallows hard, feeling a constricting weight settle across his chest that has nothing to do with pain, and everything to do with something not unlike guilt. 

Even he will acknowledge that it is the height of selfishness to expect a parent to put anyone or anything before their own children. It was a rule that Ehrie’s father had never learned, but one his mother had lived by. A choking sob builds its way up his throat as a firm yet delicate hand finds his arm and squeezes gently. “Doyle will be here as soon as he is able, I’m sure of it. But until then, he sent me to keep an eye on you. So behave Mr. Houdini.”   
Harry knows she was trying for playful, but even his best martialling of his defenses can’t give him the courage to grace her with even the faintest ghost of a smile. 

Doyle might be the most important person in Harry’s world now, but the same can’t be said to be true in the reverse. 

And for all that Harry wants to see Arthur so badly it literally hurts worse than his leg itself, damn if that simple fact doesn’t make him love the man all the more for it. 

00

Three weeks after waking up, two of which he’s refused any and all pain medication for, Harry builds up his reverses enough to make his escape. 

It takes him fifteen minutes to put on his pants, but less than ten to leave the hospital grounds. By the time he’s crutched all the way to the front door of the Doyle residence, a good hour has past and his hair is a mass of stuck down curls and sweat, which matches the soaked through stripes of the open collared shirt he’d finagled out of one of the hospital supply cupboards. 

The door takes less than fifteen seconds to swing open, answered rather unfortunately by Mary. Not that Harry isn’t please to see her, but his initial plan to not-quite intentionally collapse over the threshold is stalled by the rather short stature of his current pint sized host. 

“Mr. Houdini!” Her squeal was probably heard all the way back at the hospital, let alone in the house beyond the open doorway, which is just as well Harry reflects as his hands slip alarmingly down their death grip on the slick wood of the crutches. Familiar eyes shine out at him from a tiny, feminine face and how had he just now noticed how much Mary looks like her father. 

For an instant, Harry misses Doyle so much if physically hurts worse than his throbbing leg. 

“What are you doing out of the hospital? Father said you mustn’t put weight on your leg for weeks yet! You could hurt yourself very badly, Mr. Houdini. You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

It’s all Harry can do not to dissolve into a fit of giggles right there on Doyle’s front step, because only Arthur Doyle would have a miniature clone of himself running around, ready to lecture Harry Houdini at a moment’s notice. Mary’s earnest frown is rather adorable, and some errant giggles escape despite Harry’s best intentions. 

One of the crutches suddenly slips, right around the moment Mary lets out a belated cry of “Father! Come quickly!”, darting forward to attempt to support Harry’s bad side. 

Fortunately for all involved, Arthur Doyle chooses that moment to throw himself rather heroically through his study door into the hall, summoned by his child’s shout like a minotaur prepared to guard his most precious treasure. Harry lets himself drink in the sight of that ridiculous moustache even as he finally looses his balance, careful to angle his descent to avoid Mary’s small, well meaning frame. His ears distantly register something that sounds an awful lot like, “Houdini! What on earth are you doing out of the Hospital!!”

Doyle later swears that he most certainly does not leap the distance between them, but Harry is always at a loss as to explain how else he might have cross the good ten feet of space in the amount of time it took Harry to collapse half-way towards the floor, and no further. 

His last thought, besides a passing note that this is becoming an alarming habit, is that Arthur has very strong arms. 

That, and the uncharitable observation that Arthur isn’t nearly as good at sounding scolding as his daughter is. 

00  
“I’m sorry.” Arthur Doyle’s voice has a nearly melodious quality when he pitches it low enough, adding a suggestion of absolute earnestness and sincerity. There was a time that Harry wouldn’t have known that. 

Some days, he’d give almost anything to have those times back. He hears that tone far too often now. If usually heralds yet another conversation about “If the bone doesn’t heal properly…”

Since Arthur is currently holding said bone between his rather capable hands, delicately leading the wasted limb through the latest in a series of maneuvers which some new fangled doctors somewhere in an obscure part of the Alps have apparently found works wonders with maintaining circulation, or something equally incomprehensible to Harry’s rather drugged brain.

All of which adds weight to his current assumption about the conversational topic. “Naw, no worries Doc. It barely even hurts this time.” Which earns him a typical patented glare, one that it got a whole lot more embarrassing to be on the receiving end of right around the last Sunday, when Kingsley helped him sneak the crutches he’s not supposed to have. The Doc had caught them before Harry had so much as ventured a single step, but the entire incident left Harry feeling rather more like a child than he would have liked. 

The fact that he’d proceeded the lecture by wilting involuntarily into Doyle’s arms before he even achieved a good balance on the crutches had was neither here nor there. 

Arthur somehow seems to know where his thoughts have strayed too. “This wouldn’t hurt nearly as much if you hadn’t overstrained the leg Houdini. And I would have thought our discussion about lying would still be a little refresher in your mind. I’m happy to go over it again if you’d prefer?” 

Harry actually feels the blood drain from his face at the same time a blush creeps up his neck. “No thanks Doc, I’m all good here. Consider it refreshed.” Harry attempts a sunny smile. 

Doyle looks far from convinced, but he turns back to where Harry’s right thigh is arranged across the bed’s coverlet, jagged ridges of scar tissue crisscrossing the center like a badly aligned cross. Harry lets his eyes wander to the buttons on Doyle’s waistcoat. 

“I am sorry though Harry.” Apparently not so successful a distraction. “And I’m not talking about the leg, not like that.” Or maybe not. 

Harry lets his eyebrows crawl up towards his rather overlong curls. “What’cha talking about Doc?” Arthur’s eyebrows descend almost like a response in and of themselves. “I have a name Houdini, kindly use it.” This is becoming a rather old argument. 

“Okay, Doctor Doyle, what are you so earnestly apologizing for?” Two have always been able to play this game. 

“I should have visited you in the hospital.” Harry’s eyebrows crash back down, and he makes an aborted attempt to sit up, his chest butting against Doyle’s already restraining hands. Doyle cuts him off before he can even open his mouth, one hand remaining in the center of Harry’s chest while the other slashes through the air. “No, let me finish. I was the one who suggested going down that alley. More than that, I was the one who treated you. And damnit, I’m your friend, I should have been there when you woke up, to say nothing of the weeks following. It’s not like you had anyone else.” 

Doyle runs out of words right around the time Harry runs out of breath, both of them stumbling to a kind of mutual pause as a wave of pain washes over Harry’s face. It’s been six months since his mother’s death, three since he’d last seen her. They don’t talk about it. Ever. 

Arthur’s gaze drops to the coverlet. The one Touie picked out, to match the wallpaper, according to Mary. “Arthur.” Harry deliberately keeps his voice as even as the metronome Mary has taken to torturing them all with, insisting that if Kingsley is going to attempt the piano, he should at least know what rhythm is first. It’s a refreshingly practical idea that Harry would honestly never have thought of in a million years. 

Brown eyes meet blue. Neither mentions whose are wetter. “It’s fine, really. Adelaide told me how scared Kingsley was. I get it.” Doyle’s eyes soften. “Harry, I would have been there if I could, I really would have… it’s just every time I tried to go out the door…,” Arthur’s voice trails away for a moment before surging back up. “No, I still should have been there, I should have-,” Harry doesn’t let him finish. 

“Doc, I get it okay. He’s your son. You’re his Dad. It’s fine. More than. Really.” Arthur’s eyes seem to bore into his own. Harry isn’t sure what they find there, but after a moment, that dratted moustache ticks up just a tad in something that might one day become a smile, his hands firmly settling back onto Harry’s bad knee. Harry adjusts his shoulders into a more comfortable position, and feels his face crack open in response. 

Harry’s father never once visited his son in the five weeks it took his ribs to heal from his jaunt up that Hotel yard tree. He’s never quite forgotten how much he missed him, every moment of that time. 

Or how much it hurt, even all these years later.


End file.
